josh marshall wrote a piece back in july (I think?) observing that the dying off of people for whom mid-20th-century fascism was a living memory might be a factor in its re-emergence today. I think maybe those graphs reflect that.

I think I read that one, or at least the same idea. It makes sense; that’s the same logic behind people becoming anti-vaxxers because they can’t learn the horrible lessons of history without actually suffering them themselves. God I wish more people read books and serious articles.

Or on the more generous side, perhaps the problem is with the poll questions. Maybe millennials are more optimistic and desire something more socialist than our capitalist corporatist democracy.

Something I’m trying to understand better is the way each generation has to prove things to itself by direct experience. When I was younger it took the form of “fuck those older people have no idea what my life is like and should stop thinking they have any right to tell me what to do.” And then I got older, and became a parent, and got to experience that same conversation from the other side.

I think it’s a key variable in how human societies work, how much deference we pay to the experience of our elders and how those interactions play out. I suppose with the accelerating rate of technological and cultural change it’s rational to show less deference, because the older generation’s experience really is less relevant.

But there are some cycles we really should not be repeating, some experiments we shouldn’t be running. But… we’re running them anyway. I guess if I’m going to try to find a bright side, it might be that our descendants are going to have the benefit of some extremely vivid experimental results that will inform the rest of their lives.